04-22-2016, 02:04 AM
Anyone else super excited to see this description of all of the tracks on The Uncanny Valley? Here's the text:
Track by track breakdown of the record
1. Neo Tokyo
This is the first track of the album and the first album that doesn’t include an intro. I wanted to paint the stage quickly and lay down the basis on what the album is going to be like. This is my 4th album, people know me by now so I skip the introductions. Besides, people who’ll hear the album without having heard my previous work probably won’t care, but the fans who know my music will know that I’m not wasting any time. It’s sort of a basic track, it’s not my favorite off of the album but it sets the stage and announces what is in store for the rest of the album.
2. Weapons for Children
Storyline-wise, I wouldn’t know how to explain what purpose the track serves. It’s heavier than Neo-Tokyo and slower. I wanted to include a return to my roots, a nod to I am the Night, since a lot of people preferred it to Dangerous Days. I wanted to show people that I could include a bit of that on the new record. It’s heavier and darker though. It’s somewhat of a downtempo track but then the tempo picks up after a while.
3. Death Squad
Death Squad is the Future Club of the The Uncanny Valley. It’s the most “techno track” of the album. It’s sort of an industrial, “nightclub” track with a drop. I took a few sounds from Front 242 for this track. For this album I wanted each track to have its own “gimmick”.
4. Femme Fatale
This is one of the 2 big risks I took on the album, since Femme Fatale is actually a “Jazz” track. It’s a laid back track that blends Jazz and Electro. The drums plays a little shuffle but the kick is still an electronic kick, there’s a bass playing, a saxophone…
It’s a reference to the Film Noir genre, the type of track where you’d imagine the guy in his detective trench coat, drinking his whisky, investigating alone. I wanted to make a sort of “Future Jazz” with Synths.
5. Venger
This is a track with Greta Link, with whom I have already worked with on I am the Night, and it’s a track that picks up the tempo a little after Femme Fatale. It’s not an agressive track, it’s more like the “radio-friendly” single of the album. It sounds very Synthwave and it’s quite minimalistic. People tell me it’s their favorite off the album.
6. Disco Inferno
A reference to the Trammps song?
That’s right! It’s a track that sets things loose, to get things moving again after the last few soft tracks, it makes the transition towards something really agressive. It starts softly and gets pretty catchy before engaging in brutality. It’s a track that changes a lot. Around the end there’s a very Disco-like section where I dive back into some of the sounds from theSexualizer-era. Everyone has been asking me to do it so I did it for a bit.
7. She moves like a Knife
This is the first track I wrote for the album. I wrote it before releasing Dangerous Days and I’ve sort of regretted having released it before. I had to place it somewhere, so I brought in a transition on Disco Inferno that leads into this track, with a narrative voice. It still fits into the the context of the album. This is the moment in the album where things start going faster and the action picks up again. The finish ends on a climax with soundscapes.
8. Sentient
This is the track that we made a music video for. It serves as sort of the turning point in the story, the “plot-twist”. It’s the “dramatic” track, so to speak. It’s a mellow track, it’s kind of like the Minuit of the album. From this track onward, all of the tracks include guitars in some form of another, whether it be in the form of a solo or a background rhythm section.
9. Diabolus Ex-Machina (originally titled Deconstruction)
This is a fast one. It’s the first of a “trilogy” of tracks ending with The Cult of 2112. They’re the heaviest tracks on the album. People expect me to get really heavy on this album, so I made these 3 tracks that play one after the other. You could see them as a single track, but I think you can listen to each one individually as well. The song starts really fast, there’s a solo and it ends on something really heavy that transition into Assault.
10. Assault
The title being a reference to the John Carpenter movie?
Exactly. With Assault, we have the opposite as on the previous track; it starts heavy and ends on a break. It’s got some of the heaviest parts of the album, with the huge distortion and guitars that you might’ve heard in the teaser.
11. The Cult of 2112
The title is a reference to Rush I imagine?
Exactly. It’s the most brutal track of the album. It’s super heavy, super satanic and whatnot. It’s got an orgue, a choir… It’s also the shortest track on the album and it’s really fast.
(Dan Terminus is soundchecking in the background) It’s kinda like that! No, it’s better! (Laughs)
12. Souls at Zero
The title being a reference to Neurosis?
That’s right! There are a bunch of references throughout the album. This is my 2nd big risk-taking on the album. It’s a track featuring the Shoegaze/Metal band Astronoid. It’s also my labels’ favorite track. It’s an ambient track, I usually put one right before the final track in order to calm people down, especially considering that this one comes right after the 3 heaviest tracks. It’s an ambient track but it’s not a happy one, its more “cavernous”, oppressive, with a dissonant, chaotic urban atmosphere. The guitars play some heavy stuff, there are leads, and vocals that were written under my “supervision”. It’s sort of the “end” of the album. It’s got vocoder vocals and a vocoder chorus. It’s the most experimental track on there. It doesn’t sound Synthwave at all, it’s got almost nothing 80s’ or retro. It’s a very serious and solemn track.
Was there an intention to stray away from the Synthwave label tag?
Well yes and no. With this album I wanted to show to people that I could do other things than Synthwave. The movement is based on codes and I wanted go beyond that. On the other hand, I know that if I stopped doing retro stuff, people would stop giving a shit. If you listen to tracks like Neo Tokyo and She Moves Like a Knife, you can still hear the Synthwave elements. It’s a sort of hybrid, modern electronic music with a breath of Synthwave elements that were once more prevalent in my back-catalog but from which I’m kind of trying to break free from. The album is too heavy to have any sense of nostalgia. I decided to focus more on the continuity of my discography.
13. The Uncanny Valley
This is sort of the “credit rolls” for the album, it’s the most 80s’, “Soundtrack” sounding track. It’s got a “Prog” vibe to it, I had fun trying to make something among the lines of old Goblin records as a sort of tribute, with a grand solo at the end of it.
Track by track breakdown of the record
1. Neo Tokyo
This is the first track of the album and the first album that doesn’t include an intro. I wanted to paint the stage quickly and lay down the basis on what the album is going to be like. This is my 4th album, people know me by now so I skip the introductions. Besides, people who’ll hear the album without having heard my previous work probably won’t care, but the fans who know my music will know that I’m not wasting any time. It’s sort of a basic track, it’s not my favorite off of the album but it sets the stage and announces what is in store for the rest of the album.
2. Weapons for Children
Storyline-wise, I wouldn’t know how to explain what purpose the track serves. It’s heavier than Neo-Tokyo and slower. I wanted to include a return to my roots, a nod to I am the Night, since a lot of people preferred it to Dangerous Days. I wanted to show people that I could include a bit of that on the new record. It’s heavier and darker though. It’s somewhat of a downtempo track but then the tempo picks up after a while.
3. Death Squad
Death Squad is the Future Club of the The Uncanny Valley. It’s the most “techno track” of the album. It’s sort of an industrial, “nightclub” track with a drop. I took a few sounds from Front 242 for this track. For this album I wanted each track to have its own “gimmick”.
4. Femme Fatale
This is one of the 2 big risks I took on the album, since Femme Fatale is actually a “Jazz” track. It’s a laid back track that blends Jazz and Electro. The drums plays a little shuffle but the kick is still an electronic kick, there’s a bass playing, a saxophone…
It’s a reference to the Film Noir genre, the type of track where you’d imagine the guy in his detective trench coat, drinking his whisky, investigating alone. I wanted to make a sort of “Future Jazz” with Synths.
5. Venger
This is a track with Greta Link, with whom I have already worked with on I am the Night, and it’s a track that picks up the tempo a little after Femme Fatale. It’s not an agressive track, it’s more like the “radio-friendly” single of the album. It sounds very Synthwave and it’s quite minimalistic. People tell me it’s their favorite off the album.
6. Disco Inferno
A reference to the Trammps song?
That’s right! It’s a track that sets things loose, to get things moving again after the last few soft tracks, it makes the transition towards something really agressive. It starts softly and gets pretty catchy before engaging in brutality. It’s a track that changes a lot. Around the end there’s a very Disco-like section where I dive back into some of the sounds from theSexualizer-era. Everyone has been asking me to do it so I did it for a bit.
7. She moves like a Knife
This is the first track I wrote for the album. I wrote it before releasing Dangerous Days and I’ve sort of regretted having released it before. I had to place it somewhere, so I brought in a transition on Disco Inferno that leads into this track, with a narrative voice. It still fits into the the context of the album. This is the moment in the album where things start going faster and the action picks up again. The finish ends on a climax with soundscapes.
8. Sentient
This is the track that we made a music video for. It serves as sort of the turning point in the story, the “plot-twist”. It’s the “dramatic” track, so to speak. It’s a mellow track, it’s kind of like the Minuit of the album. From this track onward, all of the tracks include guitars in some form of another, whether it be in the form of a solo or a background rhythm section.
9. Diabolus Ex-Machina (originally titled Deconstruction)
This is a fast one. It’s the first of a “trilogy” of tracks ending with The Cult of 2112. They’re the heaviest tracks on the album. People expect me to get really heavy on this album, so I made these 3 tracks that play one after the other. You could see them as a single track, but I think you can listen to each one individually as well. The song starts really fast, there’s a solo and it ends on something really heavy that transition into Assault.
10. Assault
The title being a reference to the John Carpenter movie?
Exactly. With Assault, we have the opposite as on the previous track; it starts heavy and ends on a break. It’s got some of the heaviest parts of the album, with the huge distortion and guitars that you might’ve heard in the teaser.
11. The Cult of 2112
The title is a reference to Rush I imagine?
Exactly. It’s the most brutal track of the album. It’s super heavy, super satanic and whatnot. It’s got an orgue, a choir… It’s also the shortest track on the album and it’s really fast.
(Dan Terminus is soundchecking in the background) It’s kinda like that! No, it’s better! (Laughs)
12. Souls at Zero
The title being a reference to Neurosis?
That’s right! There are a bunch of references throughout the album. This is my 2nd big risk-taking on the album. It’s a track featuring the Shoegaze/Metal band Astronoid. It’s also my labels’ favorite track. It’s an ambient track, I usually put one right before the final track in order to calm people down, especially considering that this one comes right after the 3 heaviest tracks. It’s an ambient track but it’s not a happy one, its more “cavernous”, oppressive, with a dissonant, chaotic urban atmosphere. The guitars play some heavy stuff, there are leads, and vocals that were written under my “supervision”. It’s sort of the “end” of the album. It’s got vocoder vocals and a vocoder chorus. It’s the most experimental track on there. It doesn’t sound Synthwave at all, it’s got almost nothing 80s’ or retro. It’s a very serious and solemn track.
Was there an intention to stray away from the Synthwave label tag?
Well yes and no. With this album I wanted to show to people that I could do other things than Synthwave. The movement is based on codes and I wanted go beyond that. On the other hand, I know that if I stopped doing retro stuff, people would stop giving a shit. If you listen to tracks like Neo Tokyo and She Moves Like a Knife, you can still hear the Synthwave elements. It’s a sort of hybrid, modern electronic music with a breath of Synthwave elements that were once more prevalent in my back-catalog but from which I’m kind of trying to break free from. The album is too heavy to have any sense of nostalgia. I decided to focus more on the continuity of my discography.
13. The Uncanny Valley
This is sort of the “credit rolls” for the album, it’s the most 80s’, “Soundtrack” sounding track. It’s got a “Prog” vibe to it, I had fun trying to make something among the lines of old Goblin records as a sort of tribute, with a grand solo at the end of it.